Marty
Marty is a zebra which lived at the Central Park Zoo, and a good friend of Alex. He once had an iPod before Alex accidentally broke it. Marty likes seaweed on a stick. Marty is a hopeless optimist; he usually sees the brighter side of many things, taking every situation in stride. He strives to be unique, which proves difficult when he meets his kind in Africa. Marty is best friends with Alex and the two are rarely at odds. His carefree lifestyle tends to get on the nerves of his friends, but mostly serves to impress them; he is the one who helps hold the group together when things seem to get down. In the beginning, Marty lived a life of comfort in the zoo, but comfort led to boredom and Marty soon saw that his tenth birthday came and went and with that, his life was halfway in. Marty decided, then, that he must travel to the wild, for at least a short time, never having seen the wild. At one point in the movie, Alex says he's black with white stripes, as he has 30 black, and only 29 white, but this was partly because Alex had to give an explanation as to why he was licking Marty, as he thought he was the steak in his dream. The film begins on Marty’s 10th birthday (middle-aged for a zebra). His friends try to give him a great birthday, but somehow, Marty wants more. He escapes the Central Park Zoo, in which he lives, and makes a dash for the wild. His friends, Alex the Lion, Melman the Giraffe and Gloria the Hippopotamus flag him down, but as they are about to take him back to the zoo, police officers appear in all directions, tranquilize the animals, and send them on a ship to Kenya. However, the penguins take over the ship and the four friends are washed up on the shores of Madagascar. Once on the island, the animals begin to panic, except for Marty, who has had his dream fulfilled. Marty sets up a "bar" on the island, known as Casa del Wild (in English Home of the Wild). Alex is mad at Marty for getting them shipped to the wild, but he later apologizes to Marty and actually begins to enjoy himself on the island. Unfortunately, his enjoyment brings on his killer instincts, causing him to attack the resident lemurs and his friends, including Marty. Alex does not "go savage" for long, and is later able to rejoin his friends as they head back to the zoo. In "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa," Marty (along with the other animals) finds himself stranded in Africa. There, he joins a herd of zebra that all look and sound exactly like him. While he enjoys this new lifestyle at first, he quickly becomes depressed when it becomes evident he has no individuality in a herd. Marty also becomes upset when Alex is unable to tell him apart from the other zebras. Ultimately, Alex is able to make amends by picking Marty out of the herd and Marty accompanies his friend to unblock a dam set by stranded New Yorkers in the jungle. When Alex is caught, Marty gets the other animals to help rescue him.